My asymmetrical garment assignment is due next Monday so this week I plan to focus on a few simple shapes that I feel good in and explore different ways to interpret them. This takes my previous posting - Play With The Lines That Work For You - forward in a real and useful way.
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I'm playing paper dolls with eight 10" high versions of myself - front and back with one arm out and one hand on my hip, front and back with both hands on my hips, front and back with both arms out, and side views with my arm down and my arm out. As I wrote Diane, I realize your role is to help me see myself more clearly but this is perhaps TOO MUCH INFORMATION and yet...
... it's also interesting info if you want to dress the real you in such flattering ways that the fine details of what's underneath are basically irrelevant. Sound good. Looking at the pictures, I learned a lot about my body in a far more non-biased way than looking in the mirror or even at a "dressed" photograph. The paper dolls removed a some of the emotion and focused me on the dressing my best task.
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I started by taking pictures with the camera placed at hip level and pointed straight toward my body. Placing a mark on the floor for my feet helped to ensure that the images would be taken from relatively the same position. Standing against a light colored wall helped to define my shape. The images were cropped tightly from head to food and scaled to a height of 10" and then printed in grey scale before gluing to a file folder to create eight versions of paper doll me. All that helped to remove bias. When I cut them out, I resisted the opportunity to - LOL - perform liposuction.
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Here's how it's going to work... I think... I've never done anything like this before. I took a picture of the line drawing of view C from Vogue 9057 and scaled it to equal the width of my paper doll shoulders and then printed that image. Placing the printout on the paper doll, it was immediately obvious that it was too narrow in the hips so I slide and shuffled the drawing - in much the same way I do my patterns - to match my shoulder width and my hip width. The resulting...
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... top was - IMHO - too long so I folded it up to a length that I think looks better on my body. You can see that this was a substantial fold and that it created a lot more width at the waist than would be necessary or flattering.
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In this image, I've shaped the top closer to my body. Try to ignore the strong white fold line and just focus on the outside edges. Normally that line wouldn't be there and it's certainly not a line I'd want to incorporate. If anything, it confirms that the better choice is as few horizontal lines as possible. LOL - at least it's at a skinny part.
At first, this assignment seemed huge and overwhelming particularly because - as I've said before - my drawing skills are more stick person than fashion friendly and because I don't think of myself as a fashion designer only playing with clothing is not much different - as I've also said in the past - from designing textile art. I needed to believe - and to heed - my own message. The t-shirt is a blank canvas and so is a skirt and so is a jacket and so is a pair of pants and so is... any number of endless options. As soon as I relaxed and reminded myself of this fact, the assignment started to feel like fun and I can see how playing paper dolls is going to open up a whole world of possibilities.
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Yesterday, I spent a lot of time exploring on-line for ideas and today I'm going to draw out twelve t-shirt possibilities using my new favourite Vogue 9057. WHAT FUN!
Talk soon - Myrna
Grateful - fun with design
I'm playing paper dolls with eight 10" high versions of myself - front and back with one arm out and one hand on my hip, front and back with both hands on my hips, front and back with both arms out, and side views with my arm down and my arm out. As I wrote Diane, I realize your role is to help me see myself more clearly but this is perhaps TOO MUCH INFORMATION and yet...
... it's also interesting info if you want to dress the real you in such flattering ways that the fine details of what's underneath are basically irrelevant. Sound good. Looking at the pictures, I learned a lot about my body in a far more non-biased way than looking in the mirror or even at a "dressed" photograph. The paper dolls removed a some of the emotion and focused me on the dressing my best task.
I started by taking pictures with the camera placed at hip level and pointed straight toward my body. Placing a mark on the floor for my feet helped to ensure that the images would be taken from relatively the same position. Standing against a light colored wall helped to define my shape. The images were cropped tightly from head to food and scaled to a height of 10" and then printed in grey scale before gluing to a file folder to create eight versions of paper doll me. All that helped to remove bias. When I cut them out, I resisted the opportunity to - LOL - perform liposuction.
Here's how it's going to work... I think... I've never done anything like this before. I took a picture of the line drawing of view C from Vogue 9057 and scaled it to equal the width of my paper doll shoulders and then printed that image. Placing the printout on the paper doll, it was immediately obvious that it was too narrow in the hips so I slide and shuffled the drawing - in much the same way I do my patterns - to match my shoulder width and my hip width. The resulting...
... top was - IMHO - too long so I folded it up to a length that I think looks better on my body. You can see that this was a substantial fold and that it created a lot more width at the waist than would be necessary or flattering.
In this image, I've shaped the top closer to my body. Try to ignore the strong white fold line and just focus on the outside edges. Normally that line wouldn't be there and it's certainly not a line I'd want to incorporate. If anything, it confirms that the better choice is as few horizontal lines as possible. LOL - at least it's at a skinny part.
At first, this assignment seemed huge and overwhelming particularly because - as I've said before - my drawing skills are more stick person than fashion friendly and because I don't think of myself as a fashion designer only playing with clothing is not much different - as I've also said in the past - from designing textile art. I needed to believe - and to heed - my own message. The t-shirt is a blank canvas and so is a skirt and so is a jacket and so is a pair of pants and so is... any number of endless options. As soon as I relaxed and reminded myself of this fact, the assignment started to feel like fun and I can see how playing paper dolls is going to open up a whole world of possibilities.
Yesterday, I spent a lot of time exploring on-line for ideas and today I'm going to draw out twelve t-shirt possibilities using my new favourite Vogue 9057. WHAT FUN!
Talk soon - Myrna
Grateful - fun with design
The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It’s the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows and the beauty of a woman only grows with passing years.
- Audrey Hepburn